Really tired of act 2 mercs.... I know they're the best; every guide, every piece of advice is to get a defensive, might, or holy freeze mercenary. But I'm really sick of them. I figure my meteorb sorceress is the character who will be most likely to survive hardcore Hell with another type of mercenary. What do you folks recommend? What have you tried and found fun and/or effective? --99
Well, for MF, Act 2/5 is best because they can kill and that way their MF counts. However, if you wanted to not play MF (i.e. just leveling), then you can use an Act 3 Cold Merc. You will have to give up MF for Fast Cast and +skills. I've considered doing this up until I end up get to Hell difficulty for my MF Meteorb. However, I'll then have to go back and get a Act 2 Def merc and then level them up forever, but with Static Field, its easy... Edit: And then I realized that with an Act 3 merc, you end up losing the physical damage. So its best to use these guys with a physical attack character. Maybe you could use an Act 1 merc, but I wouldn't know how to build her right since I've never used one. But then you'd lose the whole tank thing. Bah...now I'm confused...
As the others have stated, Act V mercs are a good option for Sorceress'. I would just state that if you use a skill such as Firewall and Meteor, to be a little mindful that Act V mercs have the skill Bash, which can push monsters out of your meteor or Firewall.
Does people even use Firewall anymore? heh The main reason why people choose Act 2 mercs is because they benefit both you and itself while providing you physical damage as well. The barbarian mercs don't give an aura to help and its hp is about the same as the act 2 ones (not enough to make a difference). Also, polearms tend to deal more damage than swords and when you find a good sword, you would rather wear it yourself. You also need to do a quest for the act 5 ones, not that it's a big difference, but you still have to get out of your way to get it. The only real advantage that the barbarian get is a higher life regeneration, but when it's under heavy fire (which is what kills either of the mercs), the regeneration doesn't make a difference. The stun and bash also doesn't make a huge difference when you factor in that the act 2 mercs get jab.
Yes they do. Not everyone runs around with the same character... Firewall is still one of, if not, the best Fire skill damage wise that does not need to be synergised.
My meteorb has an act 5 merc that uses upgraded Duriel's Shell with p topaz, Tal's mask with p topaz, and eth Doombringer with a shael. Only end act monsters can kill him and that's only if I'm not paying enough attention to feed him a potion when he is up against them. He has been swarmed in Hell cows and still managed to live till the 2 of us got the entire swarm killed.
Uhh, yeah. Why wouldn't they? For 40 skill points, it does more damage in 3 seconds than a lot of other skills could do.
Because the monster moves away usually and you could barely get two Firewalls to stack on top of each other. Plus the radius of it isn't very big, sometimes the slightest move could make you miss, that combined with that there are more fire immunes/resistance than any other element makes it mediocre compared to Fireball, Hydra, and Meteor.
I find that the majority of Firewall users are hybrid Blizzard Sorceress'. They invest heavily in Cold skills, and place points into Firewall as an option to take out Cold Immunes. I believe a lot of the problems you're stating would be easily avoided by using a Holy Freeze mercenary.
Mercs Well, thanks for the advice. Even in this thread, it's impossible to get away from the act 2 mercenaries as the first recommendation And yes, I do realize that they are the best, I'm just hunting a little variety. I've got a barbarian working for me now, and he's doing well at the end of Normal. I'm single player, so I can get most items that don't involve big runewords (ATMA self-muling has rejuvenated this game for me!). I'll plan on the Duriel's shell and Tal Rasha's Crest combination as a goal in Nightmare, and then see what falls in Hell. Cheers, --99
Is that really how it works? I thought it was just that item types that do not naturally have durability cannot be ethereal. Namely, bows, crossbows and phase blades...
